While Deutsche Bank's Joe Lavorgna expects 3 percent growth, he says better than expected real consumption data (one percentage point above DB's forecast) and strong construction spending could send Q1 GDP up 3.7 percent. In a tweet last week, LaVorgna said Q1 GDP could rise as much as 4 percent.

While sequestration has hurt public spending, the private sector is improving. But "because some of the increase in consumption could show up in imports," he's sticking with his 3 percent call for now.

"The latest round of data, particularly the February personal spending numbers released last Friday, suggest the economy grew quite briskly in the quarter just ended. By our estimation Q1 GDP growth now looks to be tracking around 3.8%, which would make it the third fastest quarter in the current expansion which began in mid-2009.

There is still a decent amount of Q1 data to be released before the first look at GDP at the end of April, but barring some fluke we believe the quarter's growth will almost certainly print decently above-trend."